A recent study by recruitment specialist Robert Half found that 61% of employers have settled, “…for a candidate that did not sufficiently match the job role”. In the same study, they also found that 56% rushed the hiring process.
It appears these hasty decisions are not only triggered by an ongoing skills shortage, but also to keep up with an economic resurgence following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Making a poor hiring decision can be easy and detrimental to a company’s business aims and objectives.
We look at 5 easy ways to avoid poor hiring decisions amid a challenging and ever-changing economic climate.
1) Break down your current recruitment process
Most poor hiring decisions stem down to a company’s overall recruitment process.
If your recruitment process leads to a poor hiring decision, ask yourself why the decision was a poor one and amend your process accordingly. For example, if you dismissed an employee because they were underqualified, what can you do next time to ensure they are qualified?
2) Define your ideal candidate and your company’s needs
Once you have defined a job role and its duties, you must define the ideal candidate for that role. Think about what makes someone the perfect candidate for a job and reflect this in the job description. For example, does the role require someone who is data-driven? Or detail-oriented? At the same time, think about someone who would be particularly bad for the role.
In addition, when you write your job description, are you telling the candidate why you need them? Make sure your job description tells the reader why you are hiring for the role and couple it with your company’s objectives.
3) Do not rush the process
Amid an ongoing labour crisis, it is tempting to cut corners in a recruitment process to make things quicker. But by rushing the process, you will ultimately end up hiring the wrong person for the role. Without giving yourself enough time to prepare a job description, interview questions, tests, etc, you are left with less knowledge on the candidates. And a result, you cannot vet out inappropriate candidates.
Of course, some vacancies need be filled quickly, and you may be forced to speed up the process. Just note that doing things too quickly can gives you less opportunity to assess the suitability of the candidate.
4) Test your candidates
Oftentimes, a poor hiring decision happens because a candidate has exaggerated what they can do for your company. Therefore, you should put in some form of skills test to vet out the pretenders. Pre-employment testing is becoming more commonplace and has helped many organisations make more-informed hiring decisions.
If you ask a candidate to do some real work for you as part of a test, make sure what you are asking for is reasonable. Your candidate may withdraw their application if they are asked to do a full body of work without any payment or compensation.
5) Screen your candidates
On the surface, your candidate may have the skills, knowledge, and experience to work for your company. But do they have the legal right to work? Do they have a criminal record and if so, will this affect their ability to do the job? Are their employment and educational references satisfactory?
Every recruitment process must have a pre-employment screening process in place that takes into account all 10 background checks. Without background checks in place, you instantly put you, your clients, and your staff at risk.
Be sure that you have an effective pre-employment screening procedure in place and use tools to streamline the process.